Search This Blog

SimCity Review: Part 3 - The Features

In the third part of our SimCity Review we take a look at the features of the game. This takes into consideration the music, HUD and User Interface that help make the player play as smoothly as possible.
Music isn't a huge part of SimCity by any stretch of the imagination. It neither is a key focus of the game, or really matters. In fact, when playing a game like SimCity I prefer to listen to a podcast than the music. However, when playing for this review I did listen to the music (or I wouldn't be doing a very good job reviewing the game) and I didn't really notice it. Which I precisely what I think they were going for. In a game like this you don't want something that distracts you, makes you think "Oooh, this is nice!" you want to keep focused on building your city.

For me games like this are predominantly played to relax, and the music used really helps to do that. It's calming and very very subtle in a way that puts me at ease very quickly, keeps me focused and helps me to forget what I've been doing previous to playing. In short - it works well with the game.

In SimCity there isn't really a specific HUD in the traditional sense. HUD, of course, stands for head up display and is what you look at when your playing the game. It's that little navigation bar at the top of the screen in Skyrim, it's the map, health bar and 4 button's telling you what to press in the Assassin's Creed games. In SimCity the HUD has a much more simple function - it shows you what buildings//roads//City structures you can build at any given time. And, in my opinion, it's done quite well. It does take a while to learn how to use (the amount of times I've forgotten how to switch to the region view cannot be counted on one hand) but it's like riding a bike - once you learn you never forget. Which, as I mentioned in the previous part of the review, can be a problem when you're actually playing the game.

The UI is much the same as the HUD - not really traditional and I might go as far as saying they're almost merged into the same thing, so reviewing them separately is a pointless task - there is only one, which is both (if that makes any sense at all).

Despite looking very nice the UI and HUD can be hard to learn. The music is very relaxing and doesn't take focus from the game.